How does your garden grow?

Wayne 'Wadzy' Wadsworth has designed and built a new space-saving domestic gardening system called the Auto Pot that he hopes will encourage more people to grow their own food. It requires very little space and uses a valve to regulate water to plants as they need it, eliminating the need for forgetful humans to do it.

"People build a garden bed and get all enthusiastic and then it just goes to weeds," Wadzy said.

He has built a display model into a cabinet made from hemp particle board imported from Germany by hemp enthusiast Dr Keith Bolton.

"This is a product we should be producing in Australia instead of using wood pulp," Keith said. "It's lighter than wood and has better insulation properties."

Wadzy said the Auto Pot system could live on a balcony, or even indoors.

"If we can get people to grow their own food in the city, it would free up agricultural land for industrial crops such as hemp and bamboo that could be used for making plastics, clothing, cosmetics... anything that can be made from oil can be made from plants."

The Auto Pot is on display at Rvbyesque in Carrington Street, Lismore.